ASPartOfMe
Veteran
Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,630
Location: Long Island, New York
Musicians on the autism spectrum making dreams come true - Video by Toronto City News
The music directors statements they can write their own songs and are just as good as anybody else is ableist but otherwise a good story.
Here is a couple of songs by them
I like these a lot.
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Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
ASPartOfMe
Veteran
Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,630
Location: Long Island, New York
They appeared on Canada’s Got Talent three months ago.
A couple of other songs by them
_________________
Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
ASPartOfMe
Veteran
Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,630
Location: Long Island, New York
ASD BAND: A (MOSTLY) REFRESHING AUTISM ROCK DOCUMENTARY - Thinking Persons Guide to Autism
It is immeasurably refreshing to be able to watch talented autistic artists hone their craft and talk about their life and work without the omnipresent weight of having to educate a potentially uninitiated audience and represent the entirety or autism crushing every second of screen time. And the members of ASD Band truly shine in the scenes when they don’t have to be anything but themselves, whether it’s drummer Spenser navigating multiple scenes, keyboardist and piano prodigy Ron working in a genre that doesn’t always demand precise skill, guitarist Jackson integrating his special interest in 1950s rock into his work, or singer Rawan finding her literal and metaphorical voice through her music. It’s a genuine pleasure to be able to watch them write songs, work on arrangements, and juggle the demands of life versus art with relatively few autism cliches clogging up the viewing experience. The lack of patronizing plucky background music dousing any of the moments that could be considered quirky or strange to the uninitiated is particularly welcome.
Which makes the documentary’s brief forays away from the rock doc formula and into more stereotypical Autism Content all the more frustrating. I understand why these moments exist in the film, and I don’t necessarily fault anyone involved in it for the choices they’ve made in terms of what content they filmed, how they filmed it, what made the final cut, and how they scored it. General audiences might love their episodes of The Good Doctor and Young Sheldon, but their understanding of autistic people remains in its infancy, which forces autistic people—and the people who might want to help tell our stories—to dedicate at least some percentage of their efforts to the most basic education and obvious details. These same audiences have also proven themselves incapable of empathizing with autistic people or characters on screen. In these circumstances, anyone who wants to source enough funding to make a feature, secure screening and broadcast opportunities, and potentially find an audience of any size is probably going to have to spend some time drawing attention to what makes autistic people different, addressing our struggles, and highlighting (or prioritizing) what the non-autistic closest to us are thinking and feeling. Often accompanied by a few notes from a melancholy string section.
None of these elements are particularly glaring in of themselves. The camera’s closeups on the musician’s stimming hands are respectful and relatively subtle. Everyone’s reflections on their past and hopes and concerns for the future are completely valid and are treated as such. It doesn’t stop me from longing for a time when these details won’t be quite so compulsory for any piece of media that involves autistic people, though.
Until that day, the silver lining of these growing pains is that they offer useful insights into how the effort to represent what makes autistic people different can sometimes overshadow the ways in which we’re really not that alien. Or how much circumstances and bias can change people’s perception of what counts as symptoms, needs, and other concerns. In ASD Band: The Movie’s case, this issue is reflected in a few small scale details that probably won’t be noticeable to anyone who either isn’t autistic or hasn’t spent a lot of time genuinely listening to and interacting with us. Most glaringly, there’s a moment where a person in the film who, as far as we know, isn’t autistic starts performing a pretty classic stim. While the autistic stars’ stims are documented in detail, this movement happens without any extra attention being drawn to it. I’m not sure anyone on the production end even noticed that it was happening or could have recognized it as stimming. It’s just another movement that a human being makes. Maybe someday that will be how autistic stimming is treated, too.
I also find the lack of greater context for ASD Band and where they fit into music—and how autism in general factors into popular music—intriguing.
But these problems run much deeper than any hour-long documentary and are greater than any film could fix on its own. For all of its minor faults, ASD Band: The Movie takes at least one step forward for every well-meaning stumble back and ASD Band do themselves and their fellow autistic proud with the platform they’ve been given. Here’s hoping they’ll have even more chances to express themselves and be themselves in the future.
For this month you do have to donate $10 to the program that helped them. Next year the documentary will air on PBS.
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Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
ASPartOfMe
Veteran
Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,630
Location: Long Island, New York
NBC did a nice interview with them
Flipping the Script: Autistic musicians speak about performing as part of ASD Band
_________________
Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman